Rambles about games…

Month: January 2017

I’m going to level with you all… I’ve started this post several times now and each time it has descended into a spiral of misery regarding the current insular politics that seem to be taking hold on the world stage. I’m struggling, because the very thing I’m trying to write about is small and insignificant by comparison, but it some ways is the kind of thing that we need to hold on to in such times… so stick with me and we’ll get through this…

I am delighted to have been nominated for two community awards in the last week and have once again been reminded how much I enjoy being a part of the blogging community. Those who know me in real life likely understand how much this blog is a place for me to mash together the thoughts, opinions, & musings I have on gaming … and no doubt how it serves as a way for my to unleash my gaming thoughts without fear of boring my audience.

Soooo… Who’s getting a Switch? I’m not getting a Switch… are you getting a Switch?…

All this Switch talk is getting me nostalgic for console ownership; my various feeds have filled up with first impressions, trailer breakdowns, comparisons, loving sonnets, and angry monologues all in honour of Nintendo’s latest upcoming home console (are we calling it a home console?). Being in the PC party, all I can do is fidget with an overly complicated low-latency mouse and jealously watch as the Nintendo faithful flip-out about the good and the bad and how Mario has now decided to rent a trendy Manhattan apartment and… erm… drink coffee. I assume that’s what people in New York.. sorry.. New Donk City … do. Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to own a number of consoles and those special first few weeks of exploring that new tech are something that it’s difficult to recreate in the PC realm. One aspect about getting a new console that sticks out was the limited game library; sure there was always ‘That One Game‘ that I really wanted, but my parents (And I’m grateful to my parents for buying me consoles growing up to feed my interest) always seemed to know that I probably wanted a little variety so would pick out a second title to go with it… ‘The Second Game‘ … These second games were a curiosity, I hadn’t specifically picked them out, but they nevertheless made up 50℅ of my playing options on this new and wondrous entertainment box. I spent many happy hours on these, often B-team, offerings so the least they deserve is a ramble now that I’ve brought them to mind:

After my experiences with ‘Resident Evil 4‘ last year, I had been perched precariously on a fence panel trying to work out if that was ‘it’ and I should just abandon the series entirely, allowing those early games the peace of being able to settle in the warm recesses of my memory. It was a comment from Halsdoll that finally nudged me off my perch back into that world of survival horror by suggesting I give ‘Revelations’ a shot at pretty much the same time that Steam were having something like their “6:57pm sale because it happens to be a Tuesday” event, so I decided to jump right in and pick up both Revelations 1 & 2 to savour over the holiday period. This is the part of the post where I try to place the ‘Resident Evil Revelations’ sub-series in the setting of the other Resident Evil titles, but pulling together any kind of coherency in the Resident Evil world is tricky given all the spin-offs, re-releases, changes in focus, and generation. From what I can tell (and feel free to correct me), ‘Resident Evil Revelations’ is set after ‘Resident Evil 4’ (but not one of the main numbered series) and ‘Revelations 2’ is set after 5, not that either of these games take directly from the main overarching plot of the series. It’s much easier to just accept them as having occurred after Raccoon City when all the main characters have been posting their CV’s around liberally and have been hired by different counter Bio Organic Weapon organisations.

As games they’re different enough that I was tempted to split them up into two distinct posts. Certainly there are commonalities, however they veer hugely from each other in both plot & atmosphere and, whilst I don’t have any inside knowledge to back this up, I was left with the impression that maybe they were originally meant to be more closely tied, but somewhere in development decisions were made that drove them apart.

As the festive weeks are now fading and 2017 is beginning to warm up, I wanted to start the blogging year with what was the guilty pleasure of those lost days; the gaming equivalent of wearing pajamas all day, eating ice cream straight from the tub, and the almost constant stream of murmurings based around putting the kettle on for just one more round of hot drinks. This year I tackled both Resident Evil Revelations 1 & 2… but no, each time I thought about putting together that post my mind kept jumping back to things that just havn’t sat quite right with me in some of the recent titles I’ve played, so Revelations will have to wait for a week or two whilst I get this ramble off my chest.

… and before I really start to let my fingers run away over the keyboard, I should clarify that this is a rant/ramble. I’m not sure if I have a point, and I know that I’m likely to pick up on examples and titles which only represent a small proportion of games. In short this is not even in the same extended neighborhood of a scientific and balanced piece… just some niggling little twinges that need stretching out…Continue reading “Character Gender Equality: Are We Just Treading Water?”